Health care reform creates big demand for new IT workers

Health care reform is likely to create lots of jobs for workers in fields such as IT, Bloomberg reports, and it's keeping Norma Morganti, executive director of the Midwest Community College Health Information Technology Consortium based at Cuyahoga Community College, quite busy.
Companies already are scouting for workers “to fill hundreds of thousands of jobs in everything from running records systems to creating and servicing new insurance exchanges and entering thousands of additional codes for health care treatments,” Bloomberg reports.
The federal government projects that under the law, about 30 million more Americans will start getting coverage in 2014 through expanded state Medicaid programs or private insurers. Bloomberg notes that a study published this month “found that the newly insured will contribute to rising demand for medical services, requiring an estimated 8,000 more doctors over 12 years.”
Demand for health care-related IT workers also is rising due to a shift to electronic medical records, driven by $20 billion in stimulus spending.
Responding to demand, the industry is re-educating workers for the new IT requirements, Ms. Morganti tells Bloomberg. She coordinates one of five regions in an 82-school, federally funded national effort.
The program “is designed to train at least 10,500 new specialists in a curriculum that typically can be completed in six months or less,” Bloomberg says.
The Midwestern consortium, which coordinates 17 community colleges, has enrolled about 6,700 students, Ms. Morganti tells Bloomberg. More than 3,700 have graduated, with a goal of 5,000 by March 31. (Data is not yet available on placements.)
“Many of the students already had more than 10 years' experience in either health care or information technology and are using the classes to get the expertise they lack in the other area,” Bloomberg reports. Of those students, 17% had a master's degree and 39% had a bachelor's degree.”

This and that

By the numbers: Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC's new Home Listing Report offers some eye-popping numbers in its look at the nation's most expensive — and least expensive — real estate markets.
The report finds the country's most expensive residential real estate market is Los Altos, Calif., where the average listing price of a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home is $1,706,688. (Makes sense, as Apple, Google, Facebook and Stanford University all are within 15 minutes of Los Altos.)
A caveat: The report, for some reason, uses average listing prices rather than median prices, which can provide a distorted view of markets — like Los Altos — that have a few extremely expensive homes as well as those — like Cleveland — that have large numbers of distressed homes.
By the Coldwell Banker measurement, Cleveland is the fourth most-affordable market in the country, with an average listing price of $70,066 for a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home.
On the market: The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is moving closer to selling its landmark building in downtown Pittsburgh that has housed its branch there for 81 years.
TribLive.com reports the Cleveland Fed hired Cleveland-based Cresco Real Estate and Pittsburgh-based Grant Street Associates Inc. to market the 200,000-square-foot building. The structure has a market value of $6.5 million, according to Allegheny County records, the website reports.
The Cleveland Fed moved its Pittsburgh branch and 23 workers down the street in October. The operation employed more than 300 as recently as early 2011, according to the story.
Revving up: The recreational vehicle industry's recovery from the recession has picked up speed, according to this Associated Press story, which has a comment from a Northeast Ohio RV dealer.
“Overall shipments from manufacturers to dealers — a key measure of consumer demand — are expected to rise 10 percent in 2012 and could gain another 4.5 percent next year,” the AP reports, based on data from the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association. Through September, shipments were up nearly 11% from the same period last year.
“We made up a lot of ground this year,” said Jeffrey Pastore, owner of Hartville RV Center. “We're seeing a lot more buyers walking in the door, and we're seeing those buyers with more money in hand.”
He tells the AP that sales at his dealership are up about 18% so far this year, and he predicts another 15% gain in 2013. In 2009, his sales plunged 40% as the recession hit hard.
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